As often happens ahead of major product unveilings, a poster on a Chinese-language forum has posted some pictures of a highly anticipated device. Today, that comes in the form of pics of Samsung's expected Galaxy S IV smartphone. It's always best to take such photos with several grains of salt, since there's essentially nothing that we can do to verify their authenticity. That said, the phone looks as we'd expect: a fairly conservative, slightly larger version of the Galaxy S III with new software and upgraded specifications.

The pictured phone's specifications line up with current rumors, best guesses, and even some of the items on our feature wish list: it uses Android 4.2.1 with Samsung's now-familiar TouchWiz UI overlaid, a 5-inch 1080p display, 2GB of RAM, and Samsung's eight-core Exynos 5 Octa 5410 system-on-a-chip (SoC) with an Imagination Technologies PowerVR SGX544 GPU. That graphics processor is very similar in architecture and performance to the one used in Apple's A5 and A5X chips, though we won't know how it performs for sure until we know how many GPU cores it has or what its clock speed is. The phone also supports SELinux, a key ingredient needed to support Samsung's new Knox enterprise management software for its smartphones.

Enlarge/ The phone, which has a model number of GT-I9502, runs Android 4.2.1 with TouchWiz on top.

As much as pundits like to see big companies taking big chances with their new products, it doesn't look like the world's largest Android vendor is doing anything along those lines. A safe design that builds on what came before (while using the same general aesthetics as the rest of the phones in Samsung's lineup) makes sense, given that the S IV is the follow-up to a hugely successful product. Ars will be on the scene at Samsung's Unpacked event on March 14 to confirm whether these rumors are true or simply very convincing fakes.

I hate to say this, but if this is the S IV, I think Samsung will be cut a lot more slack for having a phone that looks the same as the previous generation than Apple ever did (including for the iPhone 5 redesign).

Re: Size, I think it's a combination of small hands and odd angles. The last picture, side-on, makes it look huge. I picked my phone up the same way, and my hand looked different; angled my hand a bit so the proportions were similar to the picture, and it suddenly looked pretty close.

It is a big device, though, but I think the overall size isn't that much larger than the 118mm Galaxy Nexus. Just less border.

If so, it may be a good size for the (majority of?) people who's smartphone is more of an internet appliance than a telephone. Pocketable, but a good-size display area.

I think it looks better then the SIII actually. it departs from the "pebble" aesthetic, giving it a slightly more angular design (flat metal bezel, orthogonal sides) and brings back the top / bottom symmetry of the SII.

Still looks awfully cheap. Even Huawei makes phones that look more solid. Curious of the metal border is still fake.

Design wise this would push me firmly in the direction of HTC One... unless there is something magical inside. The looks of the GSIII were boring to say the least... this design doesn't fare any better.

When Ars does the review for this device could you add an additional test for battery life? Since it's a 4+4 configuration, it would good to know if engaging the faster cores (like in a game) would significantly affect the battery life.

I suspect the battery life will be excellent when web browsing, playing media and plain standby. I'm not so certain what will happen when playing a game.

For those asking if the US variants will use a Qualcomm chip, I doubt it, now that the Exynos supports all the NA frequencies necessary, as seen by the Exynos chips in the Note 2. And I'm sure Samsung would prefer to use their own chips on all variants.

For those asking if the US variants will use a Qualcomm chip, I doubt it, now that the Exynos supports all the NA frequencies necessary, as seen by the Exynos chips in the Note 2. And I'm sure Samsung would prefer to use their own chips on all variants.

Last I had read the rumored issue wasn't LTE bands, but that they had issues with energy consumption. Presumably they wouldn't have enough chips available to meet the demand for the entire market. Hopefully you're accurate on the 5410 supporting all NA LTE bands though since I plan on getting the international version!

jackstrop wrote:

Why would the phone be using a PowerVR GPU? Didn't the Exynos processor in the international GSIII use the Mali and the ARM15 cpu in the Nexus 4 used Mali, too?

I still think my galaxy nexus is a better looking phone (at least from the front). I don't play any games on it so it still suits my needs perfectly. I'm just sick of the plastic edges and backside. The gray paint on mine is wearing off from sliding it in and out of my pocket over the last 1.5 years. Its a great phone but is starting to look like death. Unfortunately it looks like this new phone will suffer the same fate (although the metal siding is nice). I like to keep things long-term, but if it gets too ugly sometimes I just can't take it anymore. I don't use cases simply because they make an already big phone fatter in my pocket. If I could repaint it myself I would be set!

Who the heck seems an eight-core Exynos 5 Octa 5410 in a cell phone? That's four relatively power-hungry Cortex A15 cores and four Cortex A7 cores.

Sure it looks like on a specsheet but anything which needs to use the A15 cores is going to burn through your battery like crazy (which means that they might end-up having pretty hefty batteries).

As a related side-note, why the heck doesn't Samsung put that in their tablets? They have dual-core tablets (which could use the power), and quad (and now eight) core phones? WTF?

640K ought to be enough for anybody.

If you build it, they (the uses for it) will come. Personally, I look forward to syncing a bluetooth keyboard/mouse to my phone while outputting a full blown ubuntu distro to my TV, but that's just my thing.

Who the heck seems an eight-core Exynos 5 Octa 5410 in a cell phone? That's four relatively power-hungry Cortex A15 cores and four Cortex A7 cores.

Sure it looks like on a specsheet but anything which needs to use the A15 cores is going to burn through your battery like crazy (which means that they might end-up having pretty hefty batteries).

As a related side-note, why the heck doesn't Samsung put that in their tablets? They have dual-core tablets (which could use the power), and quad (and now eight) core phones? WTF?

The A15s are where the much of the industry is going. Tegra 4 will have A15s too, and while it has the companion core, anything that wakes the phone up will be powering up at least one of those hungry A15 cores at all times. At least with big.LITTLE (Octa), you should presumably be able to use those A7s a lot of the time to stretch out the battery.

Qualcomm is certainly a big player, and their S600/800 aren't A15 based, they sort of go their own way.

Maybe he's just like a lot of iphone users and wants people to see his new and expensive phone as a status symbol?

Makes it more difficult when it is almost indistinguishable from the previous year's model.

So, at the same time people complain that iPhone doesn't change enough from one model to the other, and that people show off iPhones new design because its just a status symbol? Um, aren't those mutually exclusive? Either iPhones design stays relatively same, or they keeps on changing it so it can stay as a status symbol. It can't do both at the same time.

Why do these phones have to be so huge? I am completely torn between an iPhone and something running Android entirely because the iPhone has a manageable screen size. My current phone is an HTC Thunderbolt, so I am desperately in need of a new phone, but no new Android phones have a small enough screen. I used to laugh when they kept saying they wouldn't increase the size of the screen on the iPhone because it wasn't worth it. Now I completely agree...

Why do these phones have to be so huge? I am completely torn between an iPhone and something running Android entirely because the iPhone has a manageable screen size. My current phone is an HTC Thunderbolt, so I am desperately in need of a new phone, but no new Android phones have a small enough screen. I used to laugh when they kept saying they wouldn't increase the size of the screen on the iPhone because it wasn't worth it. Now I completely agree...

Why do these phones have to be so huge? I am completely torn between an iPhone and something running Android entirely because the iPhone has a manageable screen size. My current phone is an HTC Thunderbolt, so I am desperately in need of a new phone, but no new Android phones have a small enough screen. I used to laugh when they kept saying they wouldn't increase the size of the screen on the iPhone because it wasn't worth it. Now I completely agree...

Sony also has a wide range of smaller and capable phones.

Besides, considering that one of the most disappointing specs of the SG3mini was its screen resolution, and SG4 will likely bump it to 1080p, I expect SG4mini to be both small AND with a good resolution (it's safe to assume Samsung has something to this effect in the pipeline).

Why do these phones have to be so huge? I am completely torn between an iPhone and something running Android entirely because the iPhone has a manageable screen size. My current phone is an HTC Thunderbolt, so I am desperately in need of a new phone, but no new Android phones have a small enough screen. I used to laugh when they kept saying they wouldn't increase the size of the screen on the iPhone because it wasn't worth it. Now I completely agree...

There are plenty of sub 4" android phones on the market. But you won't see 1080p displays and the underlying horsepower-pushing hardware to accompany it.

The iphone 5 is a perfectly serviceable 4" screen device. Or get a 3.5" 4S, it feels tiny compared to any modern android flagship.